¶ … Graduate Admissions Committee: I am sharing my background growing up, my career experience, and my personal interests with you for your consideration into your graduate degree program in XYZ School. For the most part, practical experiences and reason have shaped my life. I wasn't born knowing what I wanted to accomplish and didn't have any early gifts that pushed me in a certain direction. Rather, the largest influences for me have been experiences growing up in a military family and early service in the military as a medic.

Growing up as the child of an Army Officer, I frequently relocated throughout the country. During this time, I attended eight different elementary schools and three different high schools. Always being the new kid on the block, I learned to adapt to new environments by honing my reasoning skills. My intuition allowed me to quickly figure out how to fit in and my practical experience from constantly being a new student provided me with the knowledge of how to attract new friends and how to quickly get up to speed in different learning environments. Given a choice, I'd probably have preferred the stability of civilian life, but I did learn how to quickly adopt to new situations and I valued my friendships because I was never sure of how long I'd be around.

During my school years, it was difficult to get exciting about participating in activities because I was never viewed any situation as being permanent enough to make the effort. However, I did manage to join the Boy Scouts and I also played organized sports. These activities not only gave me the opportunity to bond with my fellow students, but provided me with invaluable mentoring from my Scout leaders and coaches on the importance of working as a team and fighting a fair fight instead of just winning at any cost. I started and lettered in football and also played in the club league for a few years.

My father had gone to Vietnam three times as a Chopper Pilot and was shot down during his second tour of duty. My father's absence was also very difficult on my mother and the military did not have as many support program options for families as they do today. However, here I learned the value of friendship and support. During these difficult times, families on the base were really like extended families for my mother and me, providing much needed empathy and comfort.
I had to balance having a father in the military with the rage of society against the war. There were often protests in front of the main gate to the military post we lived on and television displayed a never-ending wave of anti-war protests.

At this time, it was exceedingly difficult for me to understand how society could not value my father's courage and my family's sacrifices. I tried to deal with the situation as rationally as I could, but my emotions often overwhelmed me. To make matters worse, I saw my first race riot while I was living in Georgia. It seemed as though our society was coming apart at the seams with little relief in sight.

As a result of the anti-war movement and the race riots, I began to realize that politics, race and class all have their own order, with everyone forming and applying their own values based on intuition, reason and practical experience. Later in life, I would also realize how our nation would emerge as a stronger entity after going through a lengthy healing process. For my part, my father's dedication to our country by constantly placing his life in danger influenced my decision to join the service at the end of the Vietnam conflict as a commissioned officer. Here, I served for three years as a medic, hoping to be…